The Correlation Between Homework and Academic Success

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Ample research has been done on the correlation between homework and academic success with many opposing views. Research has shown that homework can be linked to better grades, improved standardized test scores, and more prepared students entering the post-secondary arena; however, this correlation is weak and the opposition has equal ammunition to support that there is no correlation between homework and academic success. There have been movements to abolish homework as well as movements to increase homework. Research has been done to show how homework has a negative effect on students as well as how it has a positive effect. Homework may be beneficial to academic success, but must have meaning to the student, must be measurable by the teacher, and must be manageable by both.

HISTORY OF HOMEWORK

Homework has been abolished, increased, decreased, and rethought many times. In the early history of the American education system, homework was the simple task of memorizing math problems and spelling words. Compulsory education required attendance until the age of 14 and classrooms consisted of multiage children. Children were required to show their mastery of a topic by reciting it in class (Vatterott, 2009). “They (children) had little alternative but to say those lessons over and over at home the night before” (Gill & Scholossman, 2004). Children often left school after sixth grade and those who went on to High school were expected to do more homework if they wanted to be more educated. In the early 1900s a movement began to have homework abolished. The Ladies’ Home Journal led this cause and recruited prominent members of society to join them. Successful policies were implemented in different areas of the country t...

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